#BookDoctor... Ruth Ozeki ❓ "I'm trying to make my reading a bit more diverse and would love to read more translated fiction. I'm interested in some Japanese or Korean fiction, but just don't know where to start. Any good recommendations?" – Vicki, age 41 📚 Vicki, thanks for your great question. There are so many wonderful books in translation from Japan and Korea. Young women writers are taking the Japanese literary scene by storm, and three recent award-winning novels that I’ve fallen in love with are Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, and The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa. All give powerfully different views of what it’s like to be a woman in Japan. Haruki Murakami is one of the all-time great modern Japanese novelists with an international cult following, so if you like wonderfully weird and fantastical literature, he is unbeatable. I think my favourite might be Kafka on the Shore, or maybe The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, or Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Recently, I read beautiful novel called Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri, a Korean author living in Japan. It's a quiet, powerful story, told from the point of view of a homeless ghost. And finally, Korean novelist Han Kang is a phenomenon. Her brilliant novel, The Vegetarian, won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize, and The White Book was shortlisted for the same prize in 2018. 💻 Read Ruth Ozeki’s full Book Doctor article over on Caboodle - click the link in our bio! #japanesefiction #koreanfiction #ruthozeki #bookrecommendations #readingtime